game to play. To effectively raise money for real estate, an entrepreneur must be proficient in all seven of the following skill sets:
1) Sales and Marketing
2) People Skills
3) Management Skills
4) Deal-Finding Skills
5) Deal-Analyzing Skills
6) Negotiation Skills
7) Closing Skills
Everyone has a strength, and everyone has a weakness; no one is perfect in all seven skill sets required for the game. As for myself, I am proficient at sales and marketing, deal finding, and negotiating. My weakness out of the seven skill sets would be management. There is nothing wrong with identifying your strengths and weaknesses; in fact, knowing where you excel and where you are weak is extremely powerful. Everyone is different, and depending on how your brain is naturally wired, you will be strong and weak in different areas.
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Action Step: Examine the following seven skill sets and give yourself a score from one to ten, with ten being the strongest and one being the weakest in each category. This exercise will give you some insight into which skills need to be delegated to a partner, contractor, or employee, and which skills can be performed best by you.
1)
Sales and Marketing (score 1 to 10)—This is the primary skill for raising money for real estate deals and the skill that is most important in the game of Money, People, Deal. Consider the following:
a. Do you have formal full-time sales experience?
b. Do you enjoy making cold calls?
c. Do you have a sales script and sales process?
d. Do you enjoy selling?
e. Are you a natural sales person?
f. Do you enjoy presenting?
g. Do you enjoy promoting and marketing?
2)
People Skills (score 1 to 10)—People skills are important in real estate. Real estate, like every business, is a people business, and every single part of the business requires some form of interaction with people.
a. Does working with people energize you?
b. Are you a good listener when conversing with others?
c. Can you relate to other people?
d. Do you have leadership skills to lead a team?
e. Do you have a pleasant personality?
f. Can you spot talented people and avoid troublesome people?
g. Can you handle conflict and communicate effectively?
3)
Management Skills (score 1 to 10)—Management skills are important for running the business of real estate.
a.
Are you able to organize information effectively and access it in the future?
b. Are you able to create and follow processes?
c. Do you keep an organized and well-run back office?
d.
Do you follow up effectively with team members to ensure that tasks are getting done?
e.
Are you effective at correcting ineffective processes and team members?
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f. Are you effective at motivating and leading teams of people?
g. Do you command respect from your team members?
4)
Deal-Finding Skills (score 1 to 10)—Deal-finding skills are very important to the game of Money, People, Deal. Deals drive the whole business, and the ability to find a great deal is an extremely important skill.
a.
Can you quickly and effectively find distressed property on the MLS service?
b.
Do you work well with Realtors® to find deals with equity in them?
c.
Are you familiar with multiple markets and submarkets to find desirable areas?
d.
Can you spot mismarketed and mismanaged properties and see the opportunity?
e.
Do you know which properties are profit killers and which to avoid?
f. Do you run ad campaigns to target distressed sellers?
g.
Do you have a network of lawyers, property managers, and other investors who can send you deals?
5)
Deal-Analyzing Skills (score 1 to 10)—Being able to find a great deal is one thing; being able to analyze a deal for profit is another skill all together.
a.
Do you have access to multiple strategies to evaluate a property from different angles?
b.
Are you familiar with sold prices per square foot in select markets in your area?
c. Are you familiar with rent rates in your area?
d.
Do you have strategies to increase the profitability of a given property?
e.
Can you create an accurate pro forma for a best case, realistic case, worst case, and nightmare case scenario?
f.
Do your numbers have padding and reserve accounts built in?
6)
Negotiation Skills (score 1 to 10)—Great negotiation skills can make the difference between an average deal and a spectacular deal. Negotiating is the key to getting a no-money-down deal, equity on day
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one, or excellent terms.
a.
When negotiating, do you focus on a win-win scenario or a win-lose scenario?
b. Do you learn the motivation of the vendor when negotiating?
c.
Are you able to properly present a terms deal and get it accepted?
d.
Do you formally study negotiating and recognize it as a skill that requires constant improvement?
e.
When negotiating, do you “give and take” as circumstances change? Do you offer strategic trades to get what you want?
7)
Closing Skills (score 1 to 10)—Closing is a skill that can make the difference between a profitable deal done and no deal done.
a. Do you operate with short, written-down deadlines?
b. Do have a hard or soft closing style?
c. Do you always make a point of asking for the business?
d.
Do you follow up with team members to